Corlis heaved a sigh and shook her head.
“Look,” she temporized, hesitating. “I was under a lot of stress last year… and I get terrible headaches if I go too long without eating. Maybe I just—”
“What did you see?” he repeated gently.
“I—I’ll tell you about it sometime,” Corlis said, feeling untethered and prone to weeping for some strange reason.
“You said you’ve been under stress,” he noted. “You mean, changing jobs, leaving your family… and making such a big move across the country?”
“Well… that…” she admitted, “and…” She paused briefly then plunged ahead. “I called off a wedding last year, just like your sister, Daphne.”
“You did?”
“Yes… only it wasn’t quite such a last-minute thing,” she said with a little laugh, though his startlingly blue eyes were boring into hers. “The invitations had stamps on them, but thank God, they hadn’t been mailed. Then I did a geographical.”
“A geographical? You mean, move here?” She nodded affirmatively. “I’d call that stressful, all right.” Then he asked, “How’d the groom take it?”
“To tell you the truth, I think the son of a gun was relieved.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because Jay Kerlin and I worked together and our television ratings were slipping. The media and marketing consultants sent out from New York strongly recommended that he hire a va-va-voom blonde to anchor the six o’clock news instead of me. I’d only just been promoted from a consumer reporter.”
“Ouch,” King said, setting his spoon down and listening intently.
“Yeah… a major ouch.”
“And so then what happened?”
“Two months before the wedding,” Corlis related with a rueful expression, “Jay started getting seriously pressured to demote me back to general assignment reporter—or they’d have his head as well. Then I found out he’d lied to me.” She toyed with her spoon, making circles on the surface of the rich gumbo, laughing shortly. “Turns out he’d been married three times before. He just forgot to mention two of his ex-wives. But, to be fair, marrying me would have been a dumb career move.”
“What a wonderful business you’re in,” King commented.
“No kidding.” She was faintly embarrassed to have revealed so much personal information to her old enemy. “So, you can see… with this woo-woo stuff on top of everything that’s gone on in my life this past year, I guess I need a bit longer to process it. Can you understand that?” she asked, her voice tight with an emotion she didn’t quite understand, but felt compelled to hold fiercely in check.
“Sure,” he replied quietly. “Sounds like you’ve had quite a year. We both have.” Then he reached across the table and touched her hand—a gesture that sent an amazing jolt up her arm. “Look, Corlis… who knows if these kinds of paranormal experiences are real? If it makes you feel any better about this woo-woo stuff, as you call it,” King reassured her kindly, “real estate agents deal with this phenomenon a lot in a place as old as New Orleans. I even know a guy… a Jesuit who left the priesthood and took up selling houses. Well, he gets called on all the time to do space clearings whenever something strange comes up.”
“Space clearings?” She was acutely aware that King’s hand remained on the dining room table, an inch away from hers. “You mean like exorcisms?”
“Sort of…” King said, nodding and taking a sip of water. “Nothing as dramatic as that movie… but I’ve had a couple friends of mine call him in when they bought old places that they were gonna fix up, and then had bizarre things start to happen.”
“And what does this ‘space clearer’ do?” she asked, amazed that two perfectly sane people were having this sort of a conversation. “Has he hung out a shingle as a New Orleans ghostbuster?”
“Dylan? Oh no. It’s done very much on the hush-hush. Like I said, he just comes over and clears the space.”
“Of what?” Corlis persisted. “How?”
“‘Entities’ he calls them. Meditates at the site. Says prayers… lights white candles… burns small bundles of herbs to purify the atmosphere—that sort of thing.”
“Sounds very Californian,” Corlis noted archly.
“Space clearing started long before the New Age was declared out west, darling girl,” King chided her. “It’s an ancient Chinese custom… you know… feng shui?”
“Is that the stuff where the Chinese orient hearth and home to face certain directions they think are lucky?”
“Something like that,” King confirmed with a grin. “It also has to do with getting rid of evil spirits or bad vibes—or whatever you want to call ’em. It’s a practice that’s been around for thousands of years.”
She was fascinated by King’s knowledge. “Besides the… entities, what else is he clearing out?”
“He clears places of any negative energies that can flow from the building itself… or the land it sits on, and even from artifacts, like an old sword, or a piece of antique jewelry—anything that was around when unhappy events or trauma occurred.” King cocked his head at an angle. “Haven’t you ever had the experience of walking into a place and wanting immediately to turn around and get the hell out of there?”
“Sure,” Corlis nodded. “Bad vibes.” Her thoughts went immediately to the closed, oppressive parlor on Royal Street with the corpse of Henri Girard lying still and sinister in its coffin. And then, of course, there was the evening just before she got fired.
King laughed. “Vibes? Now that does sound pretty Californian.”
“Ah, yes… bad vibes,” she repeated. “You mean like the night I arrived unannounced at my fiancé Jay’s apartment in the Hollywood Hills to confront him about having those three ex-wives, and guess what? There was Miss Sunny, the blond weather girl, wearing a filmy peignoir and being served a romantic candlelit dinner on a dining table that Jay and I had bought together for our new home! I, of course, gave him what-for and broke off our engagement, right then and there. You could have lit a fluorescent bulb with the negative vibes flying around that room!”
King scrutinized her closely and then said, “Wow. What a guy.”
“What a guy,” Corlis concurred.
“You know, maybe you should meet Dylan sometime… and ask him about space clearing this old place,” he said, glancing up at the high ceilings redolent with crown moldings stretching along all four walls. “He’s a hell of a nice man and has some amazing stories about the situations he’s been consulted on.”
“So you think he’s really legit?” Corlis asked.
“You mean… is Dylan sane? Not a crazy?”
“Not a con artist?” she asked skeptically. “A lot of people who say they’re mediums or claim to have occult powers are charlatans out for people’s money.”
“The guy was formerly in the priesthood,” King explained patiently. “He’s completely sincere. But who knows if any of this stuff has merit? You’re the one who’s seeing things, remember?” He leaned toward her with a mischievous leer. “Now, why don’t you tell Dr. Duvallon exactly what’s been bothering you, my dear? Where have you seen spirits flitting about?” Again he glanced around her living room. “This place is pretty old. Gotta have a lot of stuff lurking in the shadows,” he added in sepulchral tones.
“King!” Corlis said with a shaky laugh. “As I said before, it’s probably just my bad habit of working long hours and not eating regularly.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “But I wouldn’t mind meeting this guy. Might make a good story for WJAZ… a real estate agent that doubles as a ghostbuster. What’s his name again? Dylan… what?”
“Dylan Fouché,” King replied. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make a complete mockery out of him,” he added lightly. “He’s a friend.”
She protested, stung by his accusation. “I would never fry a source if what they told me was off the record!”
King gazed at her from across the dining table and said quietly,
“No, I don’t think you would, Ace. Well, anyway, one of Dylan’s ancestors founded an order of African American nuns in New Orleans. The Fouchés are a very traditional black-Catholic family in these parts. Somebody in nearly every generation joined a religious community.”
“Why did he leave the priesthood?”
“When you meet him, you’ll see that Dylan marches to a very different drummer.” King shrugged. “The priesthood wasn’t the right fit for him, but he’s a tremendously decent fellow—and a first-rate real estate agent. He’s a huge supporter of the Live in a Landmark program where people who fix up derelict historic houses get some tax breaks.”
“I’d really like to be introduced to him sometime, and you have my word, King, I won’t do anything to publicly ridicule his work as a… space clearer. I’d just like to talk to him. Could you arrange it?”
King glanced at his watch and stood up from the dining table.
“Piece a cake,” he said. “Let me help you with these dishes, and then, do you want to go with me to the Preservation Resource Center down the street? I need to check in, and we can decide on a good spot to shoot the interview there tomorrow—after I show up in court at nine and get a stern verbal warning from Judge Bouchet.”
“You seem pretty sure of all that,” she said suspiciously.
“This is New Orleans, darling,” he said, poker-faced.
“Is Judge Bouchet some cousin on your mama’s side?”
“Close. My paternal grandmother’s brother-in-law.”
“How did I know that?” she asked rhetorically.
As they quickly tidied up the kitchen, Corlis found herself surprised by the odd sensations she experienced merely standing next to King at the sink. They were only inches apart, and suddenly she had a fantasy of using her dish towel as a lasso and pulling that long, lean body toward her to feel its comforting length pressed against her own—as it had been when he’d greeted her with a big hug at Central Lockup earlier.
Whoa, McCullough! The guy was merely saying hello. The next move on your part is not jumping on his bones! Get a grip, girl!
“I’ll just let the rest of these dry on the drainboard,” she said abruptly, hanging her dish towel on a nearby hook.
Five minutes later, they walked down the block, halting at an overhead fanlight window mounted above a white Georgian door. King held it open for her as she entered a modernized interior of a building that had been constructed two decades before the Civil War. In the main room, stripped brick walls and track lighting provided a cheerful workspace where a few late night stalwarts hovered around a computer.
After introductions were made all around, King’s teaching assistant, Christopher Calvert, beckoned to them. “Hey, you’re not going to believe what Grover Jeffries filed with the City Planning Commission this afternoon,” he said.
“Let me guess,” King said, furrowing his brow in a study of mock contemplation. “He’s applied for an order to demolish.”
“What else is new?” Chris said, shrugging. “Can you guess what for?”
“The Selwyn buildings on Canal.”
“Right,” Chris confirmed with a gleam of admiration in his eyes.
“And he wants a zoning change to nullify the historic district designations for the block that he now wants to develop.”
“You got it. Can you tell me what he intends to build on that site?” Chris asked.
By this time others in the office had ceased their chatter and were listening intently.
“Our Grover Jeffries wants a use permit to put up a twenty- or thirty-story hotel.”
“Okay, Professor… tell me something else. How did you know the specifics of all that?” Chris demanded while the others emphatically nodded their heads.
“The Boston Club,” King revealed coolly. “Why do you think I keep my membership current in a place where everybody prides himself on having ancestors who were in New Orleans when it was a genuine swamp? Believe it or not, I heard about this proposal in the men’s room two weeks ago,” he disclosed, smiling with bitter irony, “but I was hoping it was just talk. A company called the Del Mar Corporation wants to team up with Jeffries because they think he’s got city government wired. They’re apparently betting that he can ram the project through, despite its sitting smack dab in the middle of a designated historic district.” King squinted at the computer screen. “What I didn’t know was that Jeffries Industries would move so fast on this project.”
“No wonder ol’ Grover wanted that eight-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar gift to the university announced this week,” Chris Calvert said angrily. “With something like this, he’s gonna need some good friends downtown.”
King shot a glance in Corlis’s direction that said, Get it, now?
“And no wonder the powers that be wanted to throw me in jail and harass the rest of you,” King noted dryly.
Chris said, shaking his head, “You know, from what we’ve been hearing around town today, Grover Jeffries has put on about as much pressure as you can to try to get this thing jammed through fast.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” King cautioned soothingly. “We don’t know what role the Selwyn family plays in all this. After all, they’ve been in New Orleans a very long time and have owned those buildings for more than thirty years. Remember, they have to agree to the Del Mar Corporation’s little schemes.”
“The Selwyns have already sold the property,” Chris announced, pointing to the screen.
“To whom!” King exclaimed.
Corlis leaned forward to have a look.
“Ah… finally a piece of information you don’t know!” Chris exclaimed. “The entire block has been sold recently to some entity held offshore, or in Delaware, or someplace. We haven’t been able to track it yet.”
“The sale’s already a done deal?” King demanded, making no effort to hide his dismay. Corlis was yearning to jot down what she was hearing, but she chose, instead, to concentrate so she could remember everything later.
Be a fly on the wall! That’s when being a reporter is the most fun…
Aunt Marge was always right about such things, Corlis thought. If she began taking notes, King and the others would start to censor themselves.
“Sure looks like the Selwyn sale’s gone through,” Chris confirmed.
“I wonder if the Del Mar group bought out the Selwyn family by making them an offer they couldn’t refuse,” King mused.
“Possibly,” Chris said, nodding. “And even if we succeed in slowing this project down, King, I wouldn’t be surprised if suddenly we have an unexplained 3:00 a.m. fire in the 600 block of Canal. This is a huge project. Millions of dollars involved. Lots of jobs at stake.”
Corlis observed the steely look of determination in King Duvallon’s eyes.
“At the risk of sounding a tad dramatic—and I only speak for myself, mind you,” King announced, glancing at his colleagues in the room, “but I swear to y’all, I will lie down in front of the damned bulldozers and get hit by the wrecking ball right between my eyes before I’ll let those buildings on Canal Street become a pile of rubble.”
Chapter 7
March 10
Virgil pointed his television camera lens in the direction of a row of three-story buildings facing Canal Street. The facade was a roof-to-sidewalk expanse of dingy, weather-beaten woven aluminum that stretched nearly a city block.
“This is it?” Corlis asked, unable to conceal her disappointment.
“That’s right,” King nodded.
A big metal S, denoting that a family named Selwyn once owned the buildings, loomed overhead at the entrance to the ugly structure.
“These are the next batch of buildings the preservation crowd wants to save?” she asked, incredulous. “Didn’t this style of architecture go out with sweatbands and tie-dyed T-shirts?” she demanded, silently recalling a wedding picture of her parents taken in 1961, in a field, on the edge of a cliff that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. In the photo, her mother’s skim
py dress and her father’s short-sleeved shirt sported matching appliquéd sunflowers. To Corlis’s way of thinking, the outdated style of the Selwyn buildings was equally tasteless, and, like her parents’ marriage that had ended bitterly, deserved to be forgotten.
Corlis glanced at her watch. She was feeling pressured to dispatch her crew to their late lunch break following a long morning of work. Today’s skipped meal was typical; there just hadn’t been time to grab a bite anywhere en route. Earlier, in front of the half-completed Good Times Shopping Plaza, she and the crew had interviewed King about his earlier arrest. He had, indeed, been fresh from his municipal court appearance, where as predicted, he’d gotten off merely with a stern warning from Judge Bouchet. Immediately the foursome embarked on a tour of the abandoned hulk, located a few blocks from the river.
Before they entered the unfinished structure, King handed Corlis an unmarked envelope.
“For you,” he said.
“What is it?” she asked.
“WJAZ’s bail money. I got it back this morning, so… you get it back.”
She smiled at him and said, “Man of your word. Thanks.”
“Thank you, sugar,” he replied.
Corlis rolled her eyes heavenward and shook her head in silent resignation. King cast an amused glance at Manny and Virgil, who were looking on with unabashed curiosity. “Oh,” he said solemnly. “Sorry ’bout that ‘sugar’ thing.”
Later, when her crew had wandered off to shoot “B” roll background shots, King led Corlis inside the bankrupted megamall project. She noticed King pause and stare in silence at a section of a vast, unadorned wall that flanked Tchoupitoulas Street.
“What are you looking at?”
“The house of a friend of mine once stood here.” He balled his hand into a fist and struck his padded flesh with force against the new building’s wall made of poured concrete. “Right here!”
“Who was it?”
“The nicest ol’ lady you’d ever want to know,” he said, his voice tight. “In fact, I call her my black mother. She cooked and cleaned for my grandmother for more than thirty years.”
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